I'm a fairly regular user of Digg - as it fills an often expansive gap of internet boredom, a time when I'm trawling the depths of the web to find something of interest to read. It's fantastic for getting the most up-to-date information, spanning technology to American Politics; science to sports and plenty in between.
But after a year or so's worth of Digg'ing I've come to realise that there is some biased behaviour between Digg users. Take, for example, the following image:
Some of you might not recognise Digg's top 10, others may be clicking right now, confused as to why you can't view the stories. Surely all of you can see a trend though? 6 out of the top 10 are Apple related stories.
Now, before all you haters start posting rants in the comments below - I know there's some Apple thingy going on right now, somewhere in the world. But 60% is a bit ridiculous.
Imagine 60% of the top 10 being filled with Microsoft stories? Actually, there could be such a day - if Microsoft announced that all their software was to be free.
This isn't news to anyone using Digg though, as they're confronted with Apple stories all the time. Is the iPhone that good though? Surely it can't revolutionise mobile phones like the iPod revolutionised portable music players???
I'll leave you with another blog post that highlights the top 10 topics on Digg over a 4 week period. If you think we're the only two writing about the [somewhat]biased rankings, then simply search for top 10 digg topics. I've only looked at a couple, but I reckon all of the results show Apple to be within the top 5, maybe even 3.
And for anyone reading this - could you explain why Apple is so popular amongst Digg users? Sure, they might all be rating the stories from their iBooks, or even iPhones themselves, but Digg should represent a good majority of technically-minded Internet users. Are most of us using Apple products? Or is it that a select few do, but many more lust after them?
So many questions, though one answer is certain - unless Steve Jobs does something disastrous, Apple will continue to be splashed all over the web. Anyone up for creating Strawberry Inc.?